Go West, Young ManBy ROBERT LIPSYTEMay 4, 1965
NEW YORK-Lew Alcindor, the
nation's most sought-after high
school basketball player, announced
today his intention to attend the
University of California, Los Angeles next
fall. Poised and articulate during his first
news conference, the 7-foot-3/4-inch, 18-
year-old Power Memorial High senior said
he chose the West Coast school "because
it has the atmosphere I wanted and
because the people out there were very
nice to me."

Alcindor visited the U.C.L.A. campus a
month ago, soon after the Bruin basketball
team won its second straight National
Collegiate championship. In Los Angeles
today J.D. Morgan, the university's athletic
director, said "we are tremendously
pleased." He added: "Of course, this is the
boy's announcement. By the rules of our
conference we are not permitted to
announce such enrollments."

Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.'s
announcement, made in the Manhattan
parochial school's gymnasium, ended several
years of secrecy and speculation. He
had never spoken publicly before, but
always through his coach, Jack Donohue.
The coach installed himself as a buffer
between Alcindor and the 60-odd colleges
who seriously bid for his enrollment and
any interviewers and newspapermen who
wanted to talk to him. As the boy's fame
increased (he led Power to 71 straight victories
and set the city record for scoring,
2,067 points, and for rebounds, 2,002), the
pressure mounted. Alcindor's father, a
Transit Authority patrolman, got an unlisted
telephone number and his 5-foot-10-
inch mother, as late as this morning, said,
"Can't talk anymore, Mr. Donohue said not
to say anything."

The gym was hung with banners celebrating
Power's winning Catholic High
Schools Athletic Association teams (1939,
1963, 1964, 1965), its national high school
championships ('63‚'64 and '64‚'65), and
its six tournament victories, five of them
during Alcindor's career. By 12:33 P.M.,
when Alcindor arrived in the gym from the
cafeteria, several hundred reporters, photographers,
television crewmen, radio
broadcasters and students lined the room.
Alcindor, wearing a dress shirt, jacket and
tie, as does every student in the Irish
Christian Brothers' school, stepped to the
microphone and said: "I have an
announcement to make. This fall I'll be
attending U.C.L.A. in Los Angeles."

Surrounded by cables and electronic
equipment, Alcindor carefully explained
that his decision had been delayed
because he was "very confused" on
whether he wanted to stay home or go out
of town. He expects to take a liberal arts
course. His particular interests are music,
journalism, and television. A B student,
Alcindor is sports editor of the school's
newspaper. He never lost his composure,
even when someone seriously asked him
if there were any liabilities in being tall in
basketball. "None that I can think of," said
Alcindor.

Bettmann/Corbis

Lew Alcindor, the 7-foot-3/4-inch senior from Power Memorial High School in Manhattan, announcing his intention to
attend U.C.L.A. in the fall of 1965. Alcindor changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1971.Runners Up

1957: Bill Shoemaker stood in the stirrups aboard Gallant Man in the Kentucky
Derby and misjudged the finish line, checking his horse by a fraction of a
second and allowing Iron Liege to win by a nose in a photo finish. "I confused
the sixteenth pole with the finish pole," said Shoemaker, who won four Derbies
during his 42-year career, in 1955, '59, '65 and '86 (see May 3).

1965: Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants established a new National League
record for career home runs, hitting his 512th in a game against the Los
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19 years before. The blast, off the left-hander Claude Osteen, put the "Say
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1989: One day after defecting from the Soviet Union, the 20-year-old hockey
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Mogilny had slipped away from a banquet in Stockholm during a celebration
for the U.S.S.R.'s 21st world championship.